UN Set For Showdown As US Weighs Abstention On Anti-Israel Vote

Yeshiva World News

The U.N. Security Council prepared Friday for perhaps its biggest vote in recent history as the United States weighed abstaining from a resolution that would condemn Israeli settlement construction in Yehuda and Shomron and east Jerusalem. Behind the scenes, U.S. and Israeli officials exchanged surprisingly sharp words for allies.

" A day after Egypt suddenly postponed the showdown, the Palestinian mission to the United Nations said the council would take up the matter again on Friday. The 15­ nation body was huddled in closed consultations and officials indicated a vote could take place immediately afterward. 

. . . 

"American officials indicated the Obama administration would have been prepared to let the resolution pass in a sharp break with past U.S. diplomatic practice. Israeli officials said they were aware of such plans and turned to President­ elect Donald Trump for support. Trump sent a tweet urging President Barack Obama to exercise America’s veto power. Egypt then pulled its resolution, with U.S. officials saying the action occurred under fierce Israeli pressure. Israeli officials then accused Obama of colluding with the Palestinians in a “shameful move” against the Jewish state. Washington denied the charge. 

ISRAEL DENOUNCES “SHAMEFUL” OBAMA ADMINISTRATION

"Paul wrote yesterday about how President-elect Trump went to bat for Israel, opposing an anti-settlement United Nations resolution that the Obama administration had decided not to veto. Today Israel’s government shed more light on what happened, and made clear its feelings about the Obama administration: . . ."
"The AP also reports that, while Egypt has withdrawn its anti-Israel resolution in the face of Trump’s opposition, another country may sponsor it, and it might yet come up for a vote before President Obama leaves office–a relief that can’t come too soon."

Harsh UN resolution on Israeli settlements suddenly withdrawn by Egypt  . . . "Beyond the Obama administration being irrelevant in world affairs is the realization that the center of gravity of power is no longer in Washington; it is in Trump Tower, where the president-elect has gone beyond dabbling in foreign policy and is actually impacting world events.

"This is unprecedented and has happened simply because Trump has asserted himself while President Obama has abdicated.  For example, Russia announced that it is working on a ceasefire in Syria, with President Assad, Turkey, Iran, and Moscow being involved in the talks. "

Democrats Plan Alternate Mega-Concert For Inauguration Day

Townhall

"While there are few actually confirmed details as of now, there's apparently a massive, star-studded "We The People" concert being planned for Miami on the day of Donald Trump's inauguration. The idea is to counter Trump's inauguration and garner higher television ratings than the swearing-in. Normally, the presidential inaugurals carry several a-list acts, but Trump has had issues booking artists to perform. So far, the only confirmed acts are Jackie Evancho (singing the National Anthem), the Rockettes, and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir." 

"Rumored artists include Beyoncé, Katy Perry, Madonna, Lady Gaga, and Elton John." . . .

How Barack Obama Failed Black Americans

The country’s first black president never pursued policies bold enough to close the racial wealth gap.

The Atlantic

"Born in 1953, I am a child of the waning years of legal segregation in the United States. My parents, on the other hand, spent about 40 years of their lives under Jim Crow, and all of my grandparents lived most of their lives under official American apartheid. At the time of Barack Obama’s election to the presidency in 2008, my mother and all four of my grandparents were deceased. But my father was alive and well—and absolutely thrilled to have lived to see the election of a black man as president of the United States. Usually deeply cynical about American politics and politicians, my dad could not comprehend my deep reservations about Barack Obama’s leadership. Indeed, he viewed any criticism of Obama as bringing aid and comfort to white supremacists." . . .

William A. Darity Jr. is the Samuel DuBois Cook Professor of Public Policy, African and African American Studies, and Economics, and the director of the Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity at Duke University.

Newsrooms are sanitizing that Ivanka harassment story

"If this had happened to Obama's daughter,these creeps would be in jail." Lucianne

Washington Examiner  . . . "We know about the alleged incident because one of the men tweeted about it in real-time, and JetBlue confirmed in a statement that there was indeed a "conflict" aboard one of its planes.

"But despite the airline's statement, and the fact that one of the men involved specifically used the word "harass," some headlines have sanitized the reported incident to the point where it's basically a story about nothing.

"Here is what Twitter user and Hunter College professor Matthew Lasner tweeted Thursday morning about his husband: "Ivanka and [her husband Jared Kushner] at JFK T5, flying commercial. My husband chasing them down to harass them. #banalityofevil.' " . . .

I had hoped those two guys were the only ones like that, but it looks like I was wrong:
Propane dealer who refused to sell to Trump supporters not licensed to sell propane, state says  "According to the Maine Fuel Board, Michael Turner, the owner of Turner LP Gas Service of Skowhegan, Maine, who refused to sell propane to supporters of President-elect Donald J. Trump, has not been licensed to sell propane for at least two years, the Portland Press Herald reported.

"According to the Press-Herald:

Michael Turner, who operates of Turner LP Gas Service on Canaan Road, left a message for would-be customers on his company’s voice mail, saying “If you voted for Donald Trump for president, I will no longer be delivering your gas. Please find someone else.” That message was left on a Friday, when the weather was bitterly cold. The message goes on to say that the cost of gas remains $110 a bottle, with payment due on delivery.

Listen to the phone message here.

Cop Pulling Over A Speeder And Helping With A Tie Is Called ‘White Privilege’ By Lefty Media Outlet

One more example of the left who cannot in any way be reasoned with.

The Hayride  "A University of Wisconsin-Stout student was rushing to class until he was pulled over by a cop near campus. The student told the cop that he was trying to get a tie tied before he gave a presentation for his class. The officer decided to help him tie the tie while the driver got his proof of insurance and license. The student was let off with a verbal warning."

Putin insists Democrats have to learn to 'lose with dignity' instead of 'looking for people to blame' for Trump's victory

UK Daily Mail  "Russian President Vladimir Putin said Democrats must learn to 'lose with dignity' after their electoral defeat, and said it was 'not important' who hacked Democratic groups during the U.S. elections.

"Putin spoke at length about the U.S. elections during his annual news conference in Moscow, where he also addressed nuclear proliferation and other issues.

"Once again, he dismissed charges of interference in the elections – even echoing President-elect Donald Trump's various claims that perhaps the hacking had been done a '400-pound guy' lying on his bed, 'some guy in his home in New Jersey.'

"Maybe it was someone lying on the couch who did it,' Putin said.

"The U.S. government has concluded that Russia was behind the hacks of the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton campaign chair John Podesta, and The Washington Post has reported that the CIA believes the hacks were intended to boost Trump. " . . .

Muslim Christmas Terror Plot Foiled: Australian Police Conduct Raids In Melbourne’s Northern Suburbs…

Heir to British throne urges subjects to think about Mohammed at Christmastime  "Prince Charles, who is slated to be the formal head of the Church of England, is behaving like a proper dhimmi, spouting P.C. nonsense."

UK Daily Mail  Hat tip to Weasel Zippers.

"Heavily armed police have foiled an 'ISIS-inspired' terror plot to attack multiple locations in Melbourne's CBD on Christmas Day, after raids across the city.

"Victoria's Joint Counter-Terrorism task force arrested seven people after executing five search warrants at homes in Melbourne's north and west, including Flemington, Meadow Heights, Dallas, Campbellfield and Gladstone Park, on Thursday and Friday.

"Four Australian* men, aged between 21 and 26, and one Egyptian-born Australian citizen, were taken into police custody over their alleged involvement in preparing to commit a terrorist attack on Christmas Day." . . .

* Don't call them "Australian"; they were Muslims living in Australia.

Now-dead Berlin terror trucker Anis Amri pictured with other migrants on Italian island of Lampedusa in 2011 after escaping Arab Spring by boat from his native Tunisia

What progressive compassion will get you. 
 No brain required to import terrorists

The UK Sun

"He was jailed for four years soon after for his role in burning down a migrant centre on the island"

" A YOUNG Anis Amri perches with fellow migrants after arriving on the island of Lampedusa, shocking pictures released in the Italian media reveal.

"Amri, then aged 18, sits with his hood up as he watches police on Italy’s Mediterranean island back in 2011.

"He had just made the treacherous sea crossing from his native Tunisia in a bid to escape the Arab Spring revolutions sweeping the Middle East.

"Four years later, he would bring death to the streets of Germany after he was radicalised in an Italian prison." . . .

Aleppo and American decline

"In Aleppo, the damage is done, the city destroyed, the inhabitants ethnically cleansed. For us, there is no post-facto option. If we are to regain the honor lost in Aleppo, it will have to be on a very different battlefield."

Charles Krauthammer  "The fall of Aleppo just weeks before Barack Obama leaves office is a fitting stamp on his Middle East policy of retreat and withdrawal. The pitiable pictures from the devastated city showed the true cost of Obama's abdication. For which he seems to have few regrets, however. In his end-of-year news conference, Obama defended U.S. inaction with his familiar false choice: it was either stand aside or order a massive Iraq-style ground invasion.
     
"This is a transparent fiction designed to stifle debate. Five years ago, the popular uprising was ascendant. What kept a rough equilibrium was regime control of the skies. At that point, the U.S., at little risk and cost, could have declared Syria a no-fly zone, much as it did Iraqi Kurdistan for a dozen years after the Gulf War of 1991.
     
"The U.S. could easily have destroyed the regime's planes and helicopters on the ground and so cratered its airfields as to make them unusable. That would have altered the strategic equation for the rest of the war. 
     
"And would have deterred the Russians from injecting their own air force - they would have had to challenge ours for air superiority. Facing no U.S. deterrent, Russia stepped in and decisively altered the balance, pounding the rebels in Aleppo to oblivion. The Russians were particularly adept at hitting hospitals and other civilian targets, leaving the rebels with the choice between annihilation and surrender.
     
"They surrendered.
     
"Obama has never appreciated that the role of a superpower in a local conflict is not necessarily to intervene on the ground, but to deter a rival global power from stepping in and altering the course of the war. That's what we did during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, when Moscow threatened to send troops to support Egypt and President Nixon countered by raising America's nuclear alert status to Defcon 3. Russia stood down. " . . .

   

What Would It Take for Progressives to Reject Black Lives Matter?

National Review  "If Black Lives Matter were conservative, it would already be one of the most discredited and despised movements in American history. Can you imagine the elite Left’s reaction to a conservative movement built on a founding lie that has incited riots, inspired shootings of police, and correlated with an astounding and deadly increase in violent crime in America’s major cities?

"It’s the latter point that will leave the most enduring legacy. Today the Wall Street Journal reported that sixteen of the top twenty cities in the United States have endured year-to-date increases in homicide, with Chicago’s murder rate reaching levels “not seen since the violent drug wars of the 1990s.” And this increase comes after 2015’s troubling increase in murders. Together, the 2015 and 2016 crime spikes have left hundreds of black men dead in the streets, with women and even children victimized by stray bullets." . . .

California Senator Kamala Harris will certainly not reject BLM or any other leftist cause. Fight, fight, fight for them all.

The Trump Nail in the Media Coffin

"Mainstream news sources exposed their own long-held biases through their extended meltdown over Trump."

comicallyincorrect

Victor Davis Hanson  "President-elect Donald Trump probably will not often communicate with the nation via traditional press conferences. Nor will Trump likely field many questions from New York/Washington journalists. 

"What we know as “the media” never imagined a Trump victory. It has become unhinged at the reality of a Trump presidency.

"No wonder the fading establishment media is now distrusted by a majority of the public, according to Gallup — and becoming irrelevant even among progressives.

"Once upon a time in the 1960s, all the iconic news anchors, from Walter Cronkite to David Brinkley, were liberal. But they at least hid their inherent biases behind a professional veneer that allowed them to filter stories through left-wing lenses without much pushback. 

"When Cronkite returned from Vietnam after the 1968 Tet Offensive and declared the war stalemated and unwinnable, no one dared to offer the dissenting viewpoint that Tet was actually a decisive American victory."

CNN Fans More Hatred of Cops, in Touting Flawed Study

Pundits ignore the real reason for the racial disparity in deaths by police shooting.

National Review   "CNN is making a desperate pitch to further enflame the ideological war on cops while it still has a sympathetic ear in the White House. The CNN website is promoting a laughably incomplete study of police use of fatal force under the headline “Black men nearly 3 times as likely to die from police use of force, study says.” Utterly ignored in the study and in CNN’s write-up is any mention of violent-crime rates, which vary enormously by race and which predict officer use of force. Absent such a crime benchmark, analysis of police actions using population data alone, as this latest study has done, is worse than useless; wielded as a bludgeon in the current anti-cop crusade, it is dangerously irresponsible." . . .

This finding, CNN tells us, is “disturbing.” CNN is apparently not “disturbed” at the fact that blacks die of homicide at six times the rate of whites and Hispanics combined. Who is killing them? Not the police, and not whites, but other blacks. Black males between the ages of 14 and 17 commit homicide at 10 times the rate of white and Hispanic male teens combined.

Hat tip to John Curnutt; Madras, Oregon